Sunday, February 20, 2011

In Nashville where the water is fluoridated: "A dentistry wing, set up in the school gym, had more than 50 dental chairs. Thirty nine dentists roamed from chair to chair, doing patient consultations, cleanings, fillings, extractions and other work.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

"In spite of widespread water fluoridation and remarkable advances in dental care, tooth decay among U.S. children appears on the increase after decades of decline.

“Cavities are alive and well in the United States,” according to William Berlocher, who was president of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry in 2010.

A massive study by the National Center of Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the prevalence of cavities in baby teeth of children ages 2-5 rose 4 percentage points in the past two decades."

Ohio is 89% fluoridated: "About 28 percent of 3- to 5-year-olds in Head Start programs have untreated cavities; by third grade, more than 50 percent of children have tooth decay."

"Lindy Cree, president of the Dental Center of Northwest Ohio, said her staff sees children and teens every day who are suffering severe pain and embarrassment from decay, abscesses and gum disease. Sometimes, the problem is money; other times, it's a family's lack of awareness."

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Missourians have some of the nation's worst dental health, despite an 80% fluoridation rate. The state ranks 47th in percentage of adults who have visited the dentist in the last year (63 percent). The national average is 71 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Illinois, where fluoridation is state-mandated, ranks 32nd, with 69 percent of adults visiting the dentist.

And it's not just adults. In 2004, a survey found that one quarter of Missouri's third- graders had untreated tooth decay.

A shortage of dentists has compounded the problem, especially in rural or underserved areas. There are 18 Missouri counties with one or no registered dentists.

Saturday, February 05, 2011

"In the last two years, she has noticed more cavities, more infections, all signs of poor oral hygiene and lack of dental care." the water is fluoridated in Lillington, NC where this school is located.

Not true, unfortunately. Tooth decay among the youngest children is on the rise, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Poor and minority populations have been burdened disproportionately."

"Weintraub initially teamed up with fellow School of Dentistry faculty members Stuart Gansky, DrPH, a biostatistician, and Francisco Ramos-Gomez, DDS, MPH, a pediatric dentist who grew alarmed when he saw a steady stream of kids with cavities at the UCSF-run family dental clinic at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH)." San Francisco is fluoridated.

"In the rural area, dentists were few and far between; the closest pediatric dentists were in Fresno, about 50 miles away. Furthermore, dentists in both rural and urban areas often were unwilling to treat children less than 6 years old, largely because they had never rotated through a pediatrics clinic during their training, and they felt unprepared as a consequence.

Moreover, many dentists did not accept Medicaid (Denti-Cal) payment. Those who did had long waiting lists. Children from low-income families often waited months for screening or treatment."

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

"Furthermore, it appears that a small number of dentists treat the majority of New York’s nearly 5 million Medicaid patients. More than half of the dentists in the state said they have no Medicaid patients at all, while 10 percent said that 60 percent or more of their patients are on Medicaid."

“We do have an oral health supply problem in New York, but the issue is not the number of dentists” said Jean Moore, director of the CHWS. “It is getting the dentists to work in underserved areas.”